University Teknologi PETRONAS ranked best university in Malaysia

PETALING JAYA: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) has gone from being the top private university in Malaysia to now the top university in the country, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings 2023.

It now sits at 63rd, climbing a staggering 32 spots from 95th last year.

The university has been steadily climbing throughout the years since its first debut in 2018.

The 11th edition of the rankings, sees Universiti Malaya (UM) falling out of the top spot for Malaysia, dropping 11 spots from 55th to 66th in Asia.

Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) is the only other Malaysian university featured among the top 100.

A total of 22 Malaysian institutions feature in the rankings this year.

China’s Tsinghua University continues to claim the top spot for the fourth year in a row.

In second place is another Chinese institution, Peking University, which is second for the fourth year in a row too.

Taking third place is National University of Singapore, which has also maintained its position for the fourth consecutive year.

This year is showing Asia’s growing influence on the spread of knowledge and ideas across the world, as measured by research publication citations.

Over the past five years, countries in the region have significantly improved their average citation score, which measures research influence by capturing the average number of times a university’s published work is cited by scholars globally.

Citation scores on the continent are growing at a faster pace than the rest of the world.

THE chief global affairs officer Phil Baty said: “THE’s Asia University Rankings shines a bright light on higher education in a very diverse continent and shows Asian universities are some of the world’s most innovative and dynamic for research and innovation.

“This is especially impressive when looking at the change that has taken place in Asia in the 11 years THE has been running this ranking.

“This gives rise to real optimism that Asia’s extraordinary rise will continue long into the future,”  he said in a press release today (June 22).